Gathering in L.A. Tuesday Night to Watch Special Announcement from Carl Dix
At a restaurant in the Crenshaw district, a dozen people gathered to watch the video statement from the BAsics Bus Tour - ranging from people who joined in on the spot, to those consciously standing with the revolution, to committed revolutionary communists. The crowd gathered around the screen watching Carl Dix’s announcement of the BAsics Bus heading to Sanford, Florida was strikingly multinational, and for many people a new and welcome experience as Black people from the nearby area engaged in translated discussion about revolution, mass incarceration, and Bob Avakian with Spanish-speaking immigrants who live in Pico-Union. One woman was clearly moved by this, commenting how here we are coming together like this, but in the prisons - like the one where her son is on his second strike - the system pits people against each other, gets them to fight each other and then that spills out of the prisons and into the neighborhoods. Everyone there wanted to participate in this historic Tour in one way or another. Some donated small amounts of money, all signed the banner, and people left with some planning to come to the fundraising picnic and others looking ahead to the June 5th day of justice for Trayvon Martin and taking posters of the Three Strikes quote from Bob Avakian to start getting up and around the area.
We received the following from organizers in Los Angeles:
A banner to support the BAsics Bus Tour began as a quote taped on a whiteboard in a Pico-Union area classroom: “No mas generaciones de nuestra juventud, aqui o a traves del mundo, cuyas vidas se acaban, cuyo futuro ya esta sellado, que han sido condenados a una muerte temprana o a una vida de miseria y brutalidad, que el sistema ha destinado a opresion y al olvido incluso antes de que nazcan. Yo digo no mas de esto.” A classroom of not quite 20 students, all children of immigrants from Mexico and Central America. As the Revolution talk from Bob Avakian played on the projection screen about the history of lynchings in this country, students who’d had their heads down when the lights went off were suddenly sitting straight up. When the clip ended and the guest speaker asked them to respond, a hand shot up. “What happened to Trayvon Martin is just like what happened to Emmett Till!” the young woman exclaimed. At the end of a discussion that ranged from what is revolution to how do you make real change to the significance of people fighting the power like the rebellion in that area the year before after the police murder of Manuel Jaminez and the importance of people knowing they have this leader, Bob Avakian, a volunteer read the quote on the board in Spanish aloud to the class and students were asked to give it some thought and send their messages to the BAsics Bus Tour. Students took the markers and grouped together around the banner. “I wish the best for your revolutionary movement…” begins one message. One student draws a heart. Another writes, “Stay safe.”
